John O'Leary

WHILE the jury in the case of Thomas Clarke Luby were absent from the
court deliberating on and framing their verdict, John O'Leary was put
forward to the bar.

He stepped boldly to the front, with a flash of fire in his dark eyes,
and a scowl on his features, looking hatred and defiance on judges,
lawyers, jurymen, and all the rest of them. All eyes were fixed on him,
for he was one of those persons whose exterior attracts attention, and
indicates a character above the common. He was tall, slightly built,
and of gentlemanly deportment; every feature of his thin, angular face
gave token of great intellectual energy and determination, and its
pallid hue was rendered almost death-like by constrast with his long,
black hair and flowing moustache and beard. Easy it was to see that
when the government placed John O'Leary in the dock they had caged a
proud spirit, and an able and resolute enemy. He had come of a patriot
stock, and from a part of Ireland where rebels to English rule were
never either few or faint-hearted. He was born in the town of
Tipperary, of parents whose circumstances were comfortable, and who, at
the time of their decease, left him in possession of property worth a
couple of hundred pounds per annum. He was educated for the medical
profession in the Queen's College, Cork, spent some time in France, and
subsequently visited America, where he made the acquaintance of the
chief organizers of the Fenian movement, by whom he was regarded as a
most valuable acquisition to the ranks of the Brotherhood. After his
return to Ireland he continued to render the Fenian cause such services
as lay in his power, and when James Stephens, who knew his courage and
ability, invited him to take the post of chief-editor of the Fenian
organ which he was about to establish in Dublin, O'Leary readily obeyed
the call, and accepted the dangerous position. In the columns of the Irish People he labored hard to
defend and extend the principles of the Fenian organization until the
date of his arrest and the suppression of the paper.

The trial lasted from Friday, the 1st, up to Wednesday, the 6th of
December, when it was closed, with a verdict of guilty, and a sentence
of twenty years' penal servitude--Mr. Justice Fitzgerald remarking that
no distinction in the degree of criminality could be discovered between
the case of the prisoner and that of the previous convict. The
following is the address delivered by O'Leary, who appeared to labor
under much excitement, when asked in the usual terms if he had any
reason to show why sentence should not be passed upon him:--

"I was not wholly unprepared for this verdict, because I felt that the
government which could so safely pack the bench could not fail to make
sure of its verdict."

Mr. Justice FITZGERALD--"We are willing to hear anything in reason from
you, but we cannot allow language of that kind to be used."

Mr. O'LEARY--"My friend Mr. Luby did not wish to touch on this matter
from a natural fear, lest he should do any harm to the other political
prisoners; but there can be but little fear of that now, for a jury has
been found to convict me of this conspiracy upon the evidence. Mr. Luby
admitted that he was technically guilty according to British law; but I
say that it is only by the most torturing interpretation that these men
could make out their case against me. With reference to this conspiracy
there has been much misapprehension in Ireland, and serious
misapprehension. Mr. Justice Keogh said in his charge against Mr. Luby
that men would be always found ready, for money, or for some other
motive, to place themselves at the disposal of the government; but I
think the men who have been generally bought in this way, and who
certainly made the best of the bargain, were agitators, and not rebels.
I have to say one word in reference to the foul charge upon which that
miserable man, Barry, has made me responsible."

Mr. Justice FITZGERALD--"We cannot allow that tone of observation."

Mr. O'LEARY continued--"That man has charged me--I need not defend
myself or my friends from the charge. I shall merely denounce the moral
assassin. Mr. Justice Keogh, the other day, spoke of revolutions, and
administered a lecture to Mr. Luby. He spoke of cattle being driven
away, and of houses being burned down, that men would be killed, and so
on. I would like to know if all that does not apply to war, as well as
to revolution ? One word more, and I shall have done. I have been found
guilty of treason, or of treason-felony. Treason is a foul crime. The
poet Dante consigned traitors to, I believe, the ninth circle of hell;
but what kind of traitors? Traitors against king, against country,
against friends and benefactors. England is not my country; I have
betrayed no friend, no benefactor. Sidney and Emmet were legal
traitors, Jeffreys was a loyal man, and so was Norbury. I leave the
matter there."

One hour after the utterance of these words John O'Leary, dressed in
convict garb, his hair clipped, and his beard shaved off, was the
occupant of a cell in Mountjoy prison, commencing his long term of
suffering in expiation of the crime of having sought to obtain
self-government for his native land.

﻿

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